How do I Collect Bean Pots?

Finding Bean Pots to Collect

• 1

  Go online and search for Bean Pots using a search engine. There are many websites and blogs dedicated to celebrating the functional and practical bean pot. Browse the websites resulting from your search.

• 2

  Look in your local telephone book for the phone number of antique stores, consignment shops and flea markets. These are good places to find all manner of bean pots. Many of these types stores have websites as well.

• 3

  Browse an online auction website looking for bean pots. Bean pots are a common household baking dish and many can be found inexpensively. Bean pots are typically wide and short and made of hardworking pottery, but the pots also come in a variety of materials such as ironware.

Focusing Your Bean Pot Collection

• 4

  Determine if you want to focus your collection on a certain bean pot material. Bean pots transcend cultures from New England to Native Americans. According to Pueblo Pottery, bean pots from the Picuris Pueblos, Taos and other Native American strongholds are often fashioned from clay gathered from clay pits utilized for centuries. Different clays give bean pots characteristic appearances. Iron and other ceramics are used to make bean pots.

• 5

  Determine if you wish to focus on antique, vintage or modern bean pots. Many collectors choose to narrow their collection to one type because of limited storage space. Modern bakeware lines often include a bean pot. Antique bean pots are typically very practical in design.

• 6

  Determine if you wish to concentrate on bean pots of a certain style. Bean pots are found with or without handles on the lids. Some have double handles. There are knobs on lids or loop handles. Some modern art pieces or Art Deco-era bean pots are slender and more aesthetically pleasing than the standard, squatty, chunky pot. Novelty bean pots sold as souvenirs, miniatures, banks or dessert cups often are imprinted with a logo or state name.

Displaying Your Bean Pot Collection

• 7

  Group your bean pots together according to color or size, with larger pots behind shorter pots, and place on shelves or in china cupboards.

• 8

  Arrange bean pots in groups on a fireplace hearth. Because most bean pots are made of sturdy ceramic the likelihood of breakage on a brick hearth is minimal. Dark-hued functional bean pots look primitively at home on a fireplace hearth.

• 9

  Use bean pots to hold dried flower arrangements or potpourri. Use them to bake beans or other foods. The function of a bean pot is varied. Use cracked pots as decorative elements only.